A Russian human rights activist in the city of Voronezh was attacked Thursday by what appeared to be two skinhead thugs, Interfax reported Friday. Alexei Kozlov, director of the local division of the Interregional Human Rights Movement (MPD), which organized an anti-Nazi rally on Hitler’s birthday, was attacked by two drunken teenagers at about 6 p.m. in front of the headquarters. According to the organization’s press center, the thugs shouted “beat the anti-Nazi!” Kozlov was only lightly injured, and called the police. The two teenagers were immediately detained.

Bradley R. Smith wasted an hour of my life last week trying to convince me and about 15 other people that the Holocaust didn’t happen the way our history books said it did. He said he wasn’t there to talk about his Holocaust revisionism, but he was. About a week before his visit he sent three copies of his book, ‘Break His Bones,’ to The Orion. In the preface of his book Smith said his ‘built-in shit-detector’ went off when he started questioning the history of gas chambers. Smith goes to campuses because he wants publicity for his ideas. I am aware that by writing about this, I grant him the publicity he desires. I almost didn’t want to write about him at all because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing his name in print again, but I can’t let this topic slide. You can also see A-4 for Gitzel Vargas’ story about his presentation.

Vandals desecrated 127 graves with Nazi swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans in a Jewish cemetery close to the French border with Germany, officials said on Friday. ‘Juden raus’ — ‘Jews out’ in German — was written above the entrance gate to the cemetery, and two German flags and the Nazi slogan ‘One Reich, One People, One Leader’ in German were also found on the site. President Jacques Chirac pledged tough penalties for those behind what he called ‘horrific and intolerable’ acts, which come amid a political row between the French left and right over their records in combating anti-Semitism. Swastikas, the name of Adolf Hitler and the SS initials of his elite guard were etched or painted onto tombstones in the Herrlisheim cemetery near the town of Colmar, 20 km (12 miles) from the German border.

Leader of the Russian delegation to the OSCE Conference on Steps to Counter anti-Semitism, Deputy Minister of Culture and Communications Leonid Nadirov called on its participants here to jointly work out “effective instruments to combat manifestations of anti-Semitism”. Addressing the forum, he stressed the importance of promoting the necessary norms of legal protection “by bringing up and educating the young people” correspondingly on the entire space, for which the OSCE bears responsibility. The deputy minister noted that the people of Russia “hold sacred the memory of the victims of Nazism, including the six million victims of the Holocaust, a half of whom, i.e. three millions, were citizens of the Soviet Union”. “Profanation of the memory of the victims of nazism is a challenge to the entire international community,” the Russian diplomat stressed. He said he was shocked by the refusal of the United States and the EU countries to back a corresponding resolution at the session of the U.N. Human Rights Committee in April 2004. “In keeping with the OSCE Decision No. 607, our delegation moves to set up special centres for the elaboration of a tolerance program on the basis of the museums of Jewish legacy and of the Holocaust, and to help them in their work,” Nadirov stated. “Not only the present-day fight against anti-Semitism, but the future efforts, too, depend on these programs,” he added.

September 11 wasn’t kind to the white-power movement. After the terrorist attacks, several of the nation’s largest hate groups lost members and money, and some all but collapsed after bitter internal power struggles. At the same time, many of the movement’s high-profile leaders left the scene: Former Klansman David Duke went to prison for tax evasion and mail fraud. William Pierce, head of the National Alliance, the country’s largest white nationalist organization, died of cancer. World Church of the Creator head Matthew Hale was arrested in 2002 for plotting to kill a federal judge; he was convicted last week and now faces up to 50 years behind bars.

Police found a cache of guns, pipe bombs and pictures of Adolf Hitler and Nazi literature in a Staten Island basement, but Thursday neighbors of the man living there described him, swastika tattoos and all, as a ‘nice guy.’ ‘That guy was so nice,’ Thomas Janul, 28, said of Anthony Boshi. ‘He always talked about America, what it means to be a good American.’ Boshi, 43, was arrested Wednesday night along with Anna DiCamillo his long-time girlfriend, after police found 13 guns, seven pipe bombs wrapped in aluminum foil with nails glued to them and more than 10,000 rounds of ammunition in a converted basement study, police said. Boshi and DiCamillo, 39, were arraigned Thursday on charges of criminal possession of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child, their 1-year-old son.